UFC 155's Joe Lauzon would rather not win 'Fight of the Night'

Four days after he stepped into the cage against Jim Miller (22-4 MMA, 11-3 UFC), Joe Lauzon (22-8 MMA, 9-5 UFC) has invented a new game: How many people stare at my face?

“At first, I didn’t want to see anybody,” he today told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “Now, I don’t even care. A lot of people are just walking by, and they’ll glance in my direction and they’ll lock on my face. And the other people are doing their best just to try and keep a straight face.”

Most likely, none of them are among the reported 12,423 people that saw him lose a decision to Miller after a three-round slugfest dubbed “Fight of the Night” at UFC 155. So saying, “You should have seen the other guy,” isn’t particularly enlightening. To strangers, he is that guy.

And he’d rather not be.

“I’m glad people enjoyed the fight, but I’m not looking to go out there and look like a zombie after every fight,” Lauzon said. “I want to have exciting fights, but I don’t want to be the guy that’s exciting because he gets beat up so much. I want to demonstrate my skills and submit people and beat other people up.”

The UFC now films fighters backstage immediately after they step out of the cage and park themselves backstage to be examined by a doctor for serious injuries. A flood of emotions accompany them as they sit on a chair between barely private curtains, often surrounded by jubilant or sympathetic teammates, and contemplate what’s just happened to them. Some go to the hospital, to get stitches or to the post-event press conference. Swelling often hasn’t set in.

Lauzon figured as long as he was damaged, he might as well document it.

Around the time his embarrassment waned, he decided to pick up his cell phone camera and document the healing process. He took a picture the night of the fight and took another shot each day. He created a thread and uploaded pictures to mixedmartialarts.com, where he was unanimously praised by posters.

“I figured it would be a cool time-lapse,” Lauzon said. “I knew it would get worse before it got better. I thought it would be fun to look back at all the different stages of recovery.”

He was right about getting worse. The blood pooling under his skin got more pronounced, and at one point, the skin around a cut swelled out a half-inch from his face.

There are now fading bruises around both of his eyes and small gashes beside and above his left. Then there’s a stitched laceration sprouting from his right brow that’s maybe two inches long. It’s the one that started “gushing” into his eye and covered his face in a gruesome mask that will probably used to denigrate mixed martial arts somewhere down the line.

He is curious whether the damage to his face will fade or be permanent. With a cut the size he sustained, the latter seems certain. But Lauzon feels reasonably certain nothing is irreparable.

He said a previous fight with Jamie Varner, where he won by third-round submission, was comparable to his night with Miller.

“I don’t feel I’ve taken any real abuse or punishment,” Lauzon said. “But the thing is I don’t want to. I don’t want to have wars if that means I’m going to forget my own name. If it got to that point, I would reassess everything and take a step back.

“I went to school for computer science. I can still remember all the classes and everything I learned.”

The UFC also has done a montage of before-and-after photos documenting the damage done during fights. Sometimes, the combatants hold their pre-fight smiles. Others, they can barely contain their hurt.

Lauzon said he’s been better, but is far from despondent during the interview. He is on his way to a seminar in Florida on marketing for mixed martial arts schools. He banked “around $100,000″ for fighting Miller and plans to pay off his house mortgage in a few more fights. He is certain his job in the UFC is secure.

Such is the way worth is established inside the octagon that Lauzon lost the fight but may have guaranteed more years of work. By late fight, he was still surging toward Miller, who faded late after an early flurry of aggression. Of the 12 performance bonuses he’s won – matched only by middleweight champ and UFC Hall of Fame shoo-in Anderson Silva – three of them have been in losing efforts, and all of them “Fight of the Night.”

Now, if he could just take less damage for his next reward.

“I wish it could have been a ‘Submission of the Night,'” Lauzon said. “I’ve got to hope that this next fight isn’t super exciting and I get one over.”

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